Wish you were here. Literally. Because I would probably trade places with you right now.

(I wrote this before my surgery but I forgot to publish it before I went under, and then drugs happened. Sorry. I suck at timelines.)

This isn’t a real post. It’s just a small recap of what’s been going on behind-the-scenes lately.

We moved a few months ago, continuing our pattern of buying a house, fixing it and then putting it up for sale about 15 minutes before it actually feels like home. When Victor decided we should move again I told him that this house will be the last one because I wasn’t moving again unless it was in a coffin. Then he waited until I was out of town and bought an old (but very sweet) house that needed massive repairs, had lots of issues, and could probably kill us. In short, he bought the “me” of houses.

When we moved we all three decided on the one thing we each wanted in “the perfect house.”

Victor wanted something safer in a gated community because I had a bit of a stalker problem last year (Please don’t stalk me. I’m very boring in real life, I assure you.) I wanted a smaller yard with big trees and a lush lawn. Hailey wanted a pool.

The week we moved in to our new gated community a man rammed the front gate and had a full shoot-out with the local police department. Luckily for him, the police have extremely bad aim and arrested him. The gunman in question lives on our street. We have succeeded in locking the crazies in with us. Also, we got a flier from the homeowners association that there’s a neighborhood mountain lion on the loose that’s eating puppies. (Not a joke, although it sounds like it should be.) And I just assume the sewers are filled with panthers.

Three weeks later I watched as a man ardently sprayed what I thought was ant-killer all over our green lawn. He was ardently spraying plant poison. He had the the wrong address and was supposed to be destroying the yard on the next street so they could put in different grass. He did an excellent job. We are now dirt farmers and the harvest is plentiful.

The view from my door. I'm sure our neighbors are very pleased that we've moved in.

Last week I decided to just take a break from all the insanity of busted pipes and roof replacements and angry mountain lions and simply relax in the pool.

Someone bring me a damn pina-colada.

PS. Everything will resolve itself eventually and in another few months I will either have some fabulous stories, some very pretty “after” pictures. or possibly a nervous breakdown. Maybe all three. Why limit myself?

PPS. My home-health nurse came today and says all my vitals are good and that I should be healthy enough to have my surgery tubes removed on Wednesday. If this surgical shit goes as well as the remodeling has gone then I suspect I will be filled with dead possums and missing several important appendages by Thursday.

Damn, it’s really hot here. Wish I had a pool like that. Then I could… um… well… Never mind. I’ll just stay in my air conditioning and look at my grass that hasn’t been poisoned. And thanks to you, I’ll probably also check for toilet snakes before I sit down the next time…

We’ve spent ALL DAY waiting for a CenturyLink tech to show up for an appointment set “between 9AM and 1 PM). It’s now 5pm, the tech emailed that no one was home 3 hours after the appointment time, and Customer Service Central can’t find his lying ass.

I always suspected Victor was a sadist. Now I have proof. Who the hell wants to move if they don’t absolutely have to???
I was just thinking about you earlier. I went to the eye doctor because suddenly the vision in my right eye became…not good. He had to dilate my pupils. I felt like I had ginormous eyes that were flashing and I know everyone was looking at me. That made me think of you for some reason.
Getting the tubes out is a good sign. You are moving in the right direction, recovery wise. Keep it up.
Don’t let Victor pick your next house. Let me.

This makes me glad that the only thing I’ve ever seen in the part of Texas where my sister lives is a single fox, running all nimbly-nimbly like across the top of her fence. She said I was crazy but I KNOW WHAT I SAW! Anyway, glad you’re doing better and I hope you have a speedy recovery!

Thank you for this. My husband and I own what I can only (sometimes) affectionately refer to as a “money pit.” It’s needed a lot of work (we’re still not there yet and its been 8 years), and I’m not sure that, given the opportunity for time travel, I wouldn’t go back and purchase any other home in any other location…but, at the end of the day, it has become our home. So, I feel your pain, and, yes, you will definitely have all 3 (fabulous stories, pretty “after” pics, and a nervous breakdown) – I know I did. At least you could sort of relax in your pool…the one we inherited with this house had a torn liner that was full of pond-scummy water and snakes. Awesome. But, we didn’t have a mountain lion roaming around, so there’s that. 🙂 Now, go drink a pina-colada…or several. 🙂

At least with the pool like that you still have the option of just once filling it with jell-o.
And the lawn? Serengeti grasses! You just need a few antelope lawn ornaments. Maybe a lion munching a fresh kill. It’ll be FABULOUS.

I love you too much to stalk you. Or poison your lawn. Or take on the gatehouse security guards in a gun battle. Or sic mountain lions on you. I think if my husband told me he bought a house without me, I would ask him whether he planned on visiting on the weekends. I hope you are doing well post surgery. I have a horrible gallbladder removal experience, so I really know what that’s like. Is that a sac of bile or are you just happy to see me? 😉 Enjoy that pool!

Oh, Victor totally picked the right house. You may have a new mortgage, but you have no grass to mow & no high water bills from filling pools. Plus, your waterless pool looks kind of like a mushroom from above. That’s got to be a good sign.

I don’t think that you have to be interesting to have a stalker. I’ve had two and I’m boring as hell. Although at least mine were exes, so it probably says more about my poor taste in men when I was younger than anything else.

I love that photo of you lying in the pool almost as much as I love Hunter S. Tomcat.

Also: remember that scene in “The World According to Garp” when they’re looking at a new house and a plane crashes into it and Garp says “We’ll take it!” because the odds of that happening again are practically ZERO? Your new place is virtually guaranteed to never have another shoot-out or puppy-eating mountain lion or accidental herbicide-spraying incident EVER AGAIN! How cool is that?!

And as long as I’m on a roll, I may as well take this moment to say: Since (re-)reading your book and your blog, I’ve developed this strange new habit. Now, when something particularly outrageous and/or annoying happens, I find myself saying, “THE FUCK, VICTOR?”–and I don’t even know anyone named Victor.

All the other stuff aside that picture is amazing. I would buy a print just to hang on my wall. We are trying to buy a house too, though it will be our first, I will make sure to Google the neighborhood and make sure we get our fair share of crazies.

I’ve lived in my shit hole of a house for almost 15 years and am still working on it. Between being poor most of that time and also lazy, things just never got done. We will make it pretty just about the time we move and start on the next one. On the bright side, I don’t have much else in life to complain about so it’s all good.

Personally, I think the community just knew you were coming, and scheduled a fitting welcome for you. I mean, a show-down with the police? Mountain lion on the loose? Killing the wrong lawn? Clearly, they’re just trying to make it into your next book. 😉

Holy crap, I thought my life was bad. Except I’m single, have a stalker & his Bible thumping family on my ass daily & dealing with multiple sclerosis, degenerative spine & joints, & several other illnesses without cures. You just seem to be stepping in the shit piles at every turn. Take a long vacation as soon as the tubes & health permits. Literally, flee the country to a place you’ve always dreamed of.

Looks kind of like excavations at Pompeii. Except you’re alive, not, you know, fossilized by hot ashes. Stay alive, okay, that’s important. And lying in the pool, such as it is (are you sure it’s not a mountain lion den? Do mountain lions even live in dens?), is apparently safer than lying in your grass. Or by the front gate.

well, I’m going to hopefully be in Texas this next spring, but it’s a big state, and i won’t have time to find you, so I promise, unless you happen to for whatever reason be at the convention in Denton at the same time, I won’t even try and stalk you. (I’d be a terrible stalker anyway, I am so clumsy I would probably fall out of a tree or pick the bushes with the ant nest or wasp nest to hide in)

Can I stalk you long enough to bring you a pina colada?
Actually, I promise not to, mostlybecause I’m broke and can’t afford to be a stalker, but also partly because your neighborhood now terrifies me.

wish your crappy summer and my crappy summer could get together and comiserate. imake a mean pina colada. or sangria. or bloody ceasar, i am Canadian after all.
for the record, my pool as actual water in it, so if you fancy a visit to Canada….

At least you can relax in your pool. Our pool died but still had water in the deep end. Two years ago I got tired of cleaning the gold fish tank and tossed the two survivors of our “20 feeder fish for $2 ” purchased for daughters horse water tank (don’t ask) down in the green murk. A year later we had 50 goldfish, two turtles (one painted, one snapper) and a dozen frogs. A damned habitat. Turtles and frogs all volunteers. Did the poor turtles just go out for a stroll one day and walk off the edge of the earth? They aren’t talking. I do throw food out daily, but I don’t clean the damn thing! Best of luck with your recovery, but remember, what does not kill us gives us good blog posts.

Lucky for me there haven’t been any reports of mountain lions creeping around my neighborhood in North Texas. Although there was that one time where numerous people described Big Foot’s brother scaling up the fucking water tower in town. Even better? There’s giant claw marks on the tower that no one can explain. Awesome. Sorry about all the problems you’ve been having but think of it this way, if something wasn’t going horribly awry you’d probably think something was wrong and then you’d be looking over your shoulder all of the time expecting Beyonce to come alive or something. Pina-coladas? What you need is a top shelf margarita! Or maybe just tequila. Hugs, get better soon!

The landscaper must have gone to the Forclosure School of Address Reading (Motto: Why doublecheck something that will negatively effect a family when you can ignore it altogether and be the first one for Happy Hour. (which by law begins at noon in Texas))

That will be one hell of a pool when it’s done. If it gets done. Assuming you don’t just give up on it and fill it with wild dead animals. Speaking of which, you should totally install a fountain of some animal peeing in the pool. They’re all the rage I hear.

Oh, honey. I’m so sorry about all of those mishaps. However, you look really good in that pool. It will now officially be my favorite pic of you because it makes me laugh and yet also somehow calms me. XXOO.

First, I swear that I only stalk online and only on your blog, so I guess it’s not really stalking if I’m reading stuff you put out there for the world, right? I hope so. 🙂

I hope that you get your tubes out without any further craziness. Hopefully the house will end up with lots of fun stories (like the one I have of my dad and a family friend ripping the roof off our house and then getting two feet of snow. We lived in SW OK, not big snow country) and yet still have lots of fabulous after pics to share!!

Having drainage tubes removed is its own special hell, but it’s also over very quickly and they give you Xanax afterward (at least that’s my experience). I never did figure out why they didn’t give me the Xanax first.

Trust me enough to know you WOULD NOT trade places with me. We moved from Ohio to Kansas. We built a beautiful new house which took forever due to permits. We moved in the new house and bought new furniture and a new washing machine. That machine was defective and flooded my house 7 hours after I finished moving in. Ruined the main floor and the finished basement. That was in APRIL….it is not finished being repaired yet. I still do not have a kitchen, family room, bar, craft room, great room, or dining room. I live in this house with sub-contractors walking in and out at their free will. Forget locking the doors…it just pisses them off.
The custom furniture that we ordered is splitting at the seams, and we have not even used it yet. I ordered all new blinds for the house. At least the windows I was covering…out of 15 windows….14 of the blinds are defective. They waited two month of me living with a yard that looks like yours right now. Dirt yards and large dogs…do not go well. I finally got sod just in time for the 100 plus degree days of Kansas.
My son had a car accident the same day as the flood, because I was too tired to drive and get supper. $7000 damage on his new car…and my “kinda” daughter fell off a 100 ft cliff and survived…all in the same day. Seriously…she really did.
Our neighbors didn’t welcome us to the neighborhood at all. Still have not…I am thinking a priest might be called for now. I am not Catholic and it still might be my only option on getting this house to quit trying to kill me.
Still want to trade with me? My new mantra is this…”nobody died today….nobody died today…”
If we don’t laugh…the house wins…..

You have just made me extremely jealous and grateful that I don’t live there all at the same time. After all who wouldn’t want to live in the same neighborhood as a crazy gun toting gate killing neighbor but I draw the line at panther invested sewers.

I assume the ants were also killed in addition to the grass. In which case, you know, win-win, and at least you now have a low maintenance lawn that will look awesome at Halloween. I was going to comment that your pool looks like a bone, but I see that other people have already implied a bone-ish pool, both canine and phallic, so…. yeah.. THAT’S covered. Also, Beyonce needs to be bolted permanently to your diving board as, you know, an accent. I don’t think your neighbors would notice the grass after that.

Oh Jenny, I’m so sorry. I just moved to a new apartment and I thought I would have a nervous breakdown. I can’t imagine moving an entire house, especially if it had to be renovated (and de-mountain lioned). On the bright side, I always loved the pics you took at your old house and I’m sure you’ll be to make this one just as nice.

Thank you, in amounts that are impossible to communicate. While sitting surrounded by my moving stuff waiting for the packers to come and TOUCH ALL MY STUFF (I am going to need wine while they are here) your words distracted me for just long enough to make me forget we are moving. For the first time. Out of the country. Far away from what family I have left. From the only place I have ever known. And I am in my 30s. Now I must go get lost in my sea of boxes while chanting ” I love my husband, the girls need their daddy, I do not feel stabby, the military has GREAT benefits…sniffle sniffle”
Thank you and good luck with your own situation, sincerely.

Jenny, come to my pool. My husband plays cabana boy for me and my friends when we’re lounging by the sparkly cool stuff. Granted, it’s roughly the temperature of Hell on the pool deck this time of year (Phoenix – need I say more?). But the cool drinks delivered by my sweet, cute hubby do make it worthwhile. Also, my friends and I are good company. You’re welcome any time.

That looks like a lot of work. I would just turn it into a ball pit and call it a day. Or fill it with jelly beans and have everyone guess how many are in there. Winner gets to take all the jelly beans home. Yaaaayyy!

Ugh, moving sucks. Don’t feel bad, my dishwasher decided we needed to have a foam party tonight in the kitchen. I pray that the dishwasher has finally gotten all its partying out of its system.
Bring the mountain lion to Northern Illinois. I’ve got a neighbor’s rooster it can feast upon.

I don’t want to stalk you… but i am completely convinced that we may in fact share a brain… in a good not homicidal i want your brain in a jar way … cause i like it not in a jar and in your head where it can say things i relate to and laugh heartily …. and i want to crochet clothing for your various taxidermied creatures…. all of which sounds like i am a creepy old lady stalker… freaking great… blocked from another forum…

literally laughed out loud and nearly spit out a very delicous sip of my evening glass of “damn this was a long day” at that shot of you in the pool. wowzers, this is going to be one seriously awesome before/after project! we’ve done our share of buying (and living in) fixeruppers, but you’ve got us topped for sure. hope someone snagged you that pina-colada…cause that pool is going to be gorgeous when you are through with it!!

I found myself resentful of the “better haves” recently. And although I know I don’t have it bad, as a horrible person, of course, I feel I deserve BETTER. Ridiculous!
I hope you, Victor and Hailey have a wonderful life in your new digs. You actually DO deserve it. Enjoy!

Jeebus! I love all you people. I wish we could all hang out at an all you can drink buffet. In a hotel so we could all go back to our rooms when we got overwhelmed with being social, but we could still see each other at brunch after we recovered. Someone start organizing this! A “weirdo introverts who embrace the absurd” weekend!

First of all, I gave myself the willies imagining Victor was on the roof taking that shot. Then I imagined the conversation -shouted- and I got over my willies. And then I realized it was probably Maile, and I got the willies all over again.

I think you are paying a little bit too much of a price for fame and alleged fortune. Can’t you move somewhere anonymously? Like a different part of the country and change your name and your loved ones names? Or at least hire some protection, like real patrol officers that will PROTECT YOU? The crazy man was in the gated community? Anyone hear of a reference check? Now, I’m getting anxious for you. Ps what operation? Your tense friend, Laurie F.

Long time listener (reader), first time caller (commenter) – I have been reading your work for a few years now, and I must say you are an absolute delight! It began with your mommy advice column, which I still recommend to new moms, and grew from there. So, a few things:

1. Get Well Soon! Surgery sucks, but you are fabulous, so will be sending you lots of healing and happy vibes!
2. I agree with above commenters – this should definitely be the title and cover of your next book! Brilliant!
3. Welcome to the SAT. When I moved there years ago, I was surprised to find the very odd mix of pigeon-holed neighborhood (nice on one street, daily SWAT shoot-out one block over) mixed with the occasional visit from unexpected wildlife. It was almost like I had left West Texas and found myself in a slightly greener, lusher, larger version of … West Texas. Good luck!

That pool shot is SO Salinger/Nine Stories (or was it Franny & Zooey?). Except you’re alive, which is a good thing for all of us, although your gallbladder is probably still sulking at its failure. I think the giant chicken would have looked superb sitting in the hot tub beside you, but still an extremely well-done photo of Leibovitz quality. Uh, by the way – screw the mountain lion – rattlesnakes anyone? Don’t they dig rocks? I don’t want to alarm you, but it appears that rocks they are aplenty in the pool development zone. Couldn’t one even slither through that hole in your wall the nurse was so kind to point out for you? I hear Texas is full of snakes (no, that’s not a political commentary). Hope you’re back up and jumping in your pool and rolling in your grass soon!

you know, i looked at the pool picture, did not notice the “shape” just thought how fantastic the shot was, read all the comments, because you have clever commenters, looked at the picture again, and realized you have the rays of Jesus in your shot. one day when i was burning dinner and the kitchen had filled with smoke, my young son came in and said “look mom. it’s the rays of Jesus” the sunlight from the window was filtered from the smoke and indeed i had rays. i just wished Jesus had cooked dinner.

“We are now dirt farmers and the harvest is plentiful.” — I will be using that phrase from now on when my overly meddlesome neighbors ask me for the 876th time when I am going to instill the “landscaping that I must want” in front of my house.

Can you imagine what this month would have been like WITHOUT the drugs you are currently taking?
Thank you for this post! I spit soda all over the place when I scrolled down and saw you lying in your pool ~ hopefully this was taken B4 the tubes were put in, otherwise, I would imagine you yelling at Victor to help you lie down for the photo and he just shaking his head sayin, “It’s just not worth it Jen … you’ll get a pebble/rock/mountain lion stuck in your tummy tubes, now get the HELL out of the pool!”

I too live in a gated community – and the nuts are inside not out. The little bit that they don’t tell you is that the gates are to keep the crazies from the rest of the world. Welcome to the dark side – it will only get worse with the neighbors. Oh, sorry I meant how wonderful it will be and you will LOVE it.

Completely without reading the comments, I thought to myself, “How cool is it that your pool is shaped like a dog treat bone?” I now see the two comments above me mention this, so it must be true. I suggest you get a large metal dog to place next to the pool-or you could just get new towels with dogs on them.

The house is the Willie Wonka of houses.
“Oh, you want a safe neighborhood, with a nice lawn and pool? NO SIR. You get NOTHING! I SAID GOOD DAY!”
On the upside, you got my boyfriend to laugh. It’s incredibly hard to get him to do more than smile at a joke. You’re one of the few things I can read him, and almost guarantees a laugh. It’s probably because I’m batshit crazy like you.

Just wow….. throw in a surgery and I would be completely and utterly capable of ripping off a head!

But on the bright side you two FIX UP the houses you live in so there is some hope. Year 15 and the vintage,character house we bought is still not to my liking.. (“Hello!, could we not HIRE people for this shit?!)

I had a stalker once. He was my ex physics TA, who spent so much time writing me ghastly poetry about how he wanted to summit love mountain and have his own sexual revolution that he flunked grad school and got deported back to Nepal. I swear all this is true.

That pool picture is so crazy, amazing perfect. You make me want an empty pool in a moderate state of disrepair, because you are selling it. Attitude-wise, selling it. Not literally for-sale, given your aforementioned desire to remain a permanent resident. Of the house, not the pool.

Quitting while I am ahead, qualifier-wise. Also joining the ranks of those of us publicly committing to not stalking you. I promise to not ever stalk you in real life. (I blog stalk you all the time.)

The house behind us was abandoned in January and the bank put it on the market a couple of months ago. It comes complete with a broken down pool and some haunted house worthy repairs to the wood siding. My husband has been eyeing it as a fixer upper (and to annex the pool). Thanks for encouraging me to change his mind.

I just finished your book (and that means “just” as in this very hour). While half way through I paused and called you genius on FB. It deserves every single accolade it has received. Hope you can recover from your surgery as quickly and comfortably as possible. Can’t tell you how much I recognized ME while reading your memoir. I didn’t have an everyday, “normal” upbringing either but wouldn’t trade mine for the world. Yours is the book I always wanted to write (and now I don’t have to try and be rejected) because nothing could EVER top yours. I traded my memoir for 20 years toward a different book Instead — one of those serious non-fiction works that needed to be written, too, and have no regrets.
I would one day love to tell you about the goat we had in NJ where I grew up…you would love the stories of BooBoo always chasing me around the neighborhood and of the time I found out the hard way that BooBoo wasn’t female. (There’s no pun, honest.) Anyhow, you’re great, really 🙂 Marti Rulli PS….I intend to leave an Amazon review.

You handled the last week much better than I did- I just slammed the refrigerator door about ten times because I needed to. A carton of eggs and a bunch of veggies were victims of that meltdown. Thanks for listening.

Yeah, I have to add my voice to the ones saying that picture should be on the cover of your next book, and that it should be titled “Someone Bring Me a Damn Pina Colada.” Hope your recovery goes well and there are no dead possums (or any other small marsupials) involved.

This is off the chizzain. But I could have warned you about gated communities. “Crazy” pays gates no nevermind. That said, as a visionary, I can tell that once you get the AstroTurf laid in the front yard and the pool filled, your place will be way swanky.

You have brought me so much joy and laughter through your words. Speaking from experience, the drains will NOT be fun. Make them give you SOMETHING. A grateful reader…who has no taxidermy, but does have a polydactyl Siamese. Be well.

I wouldn’t stalk you (I’m lazy and easily distracted, I imagine I’d be bad at it if I ever tried anyways) but I would love to send you a get-well-soon pie!
Or a card. Either way.

Good luck with the new neighborhood! Hey, the house next door to us is for sale, and the house down the street will probably be up in a month or three. We live at the edge of Austin, it’s a SUPER amazing neighborhood and we have GREAT neighbors!
Not really gated though. Very safe though! But I also don’t think there’s a pool either. D: But there is a nature trail at the end of our street, and there’s a decent sized pond there! With toads! And frogs! And turtles!

But seriously, we all believe in you guys, I’m sure your new home is going to look beautiful and be perfect by time you get done with it!

Ya know, I think I just realized the biggest reason I adore your writing (besides all the obvious ones)…for every time someone looks me dead in my shit and says, “Only you!” I know in my heart of hearts, there’s at least one other person on this plane that whatever-it-was could have happened to!
Keeping fingers and toes crossed all goes well, tubes come out, and you’re back on your feet in no time!

Jenny,
Only you could pull off the line, ” I had a bit of a stalker problem last year.”
And only you could move into 666 Satan Lane in the gated community of “Milton’s Paradise” – bonus points if you get the reference – and actually stick around for more than one crisis.

(Incidentally, if anyone other than myself and you recounted the preceding events, i’d say they were mainlining Drano, but knowing you as well as i do, I know you’ve been selected as Fate’s bitch. At least you’re in good company: I had a little boy barf all over my bell cart yesterday morning.)

Our lives rule, don’t they?
But we wouldn’t have them any other way, would we?

I thought to myself, “Oh, No! Jenny in a gated community.” But as I read further, I understood…THAT kind of gated community. The guards are keeping YOU in, not keeping THEM out. Hotel California?? It will turn out lovely….

Totally agree on the next book cover being your *pool scene*, however, it should be Hailey’s Book… “And this is why I drink”…
And while I’m on titles and such… your new neighbor’s can title their collective memoir “She Drove Me Redneck Crazy”… each with a quirky anecdotal quip about their encounters with you and the fam. Your next title could maybe be ‘Crazy Girl”… Yes, it’s 3AM by me, I’m listening to country music with my caffeine IV which of course makes this fucking hilarious in my head. Perhaps not so much by lunchtime…
Also!! I saw your book is available in audio format. And, while I am highly suspicious of anyone who buys ‘books that talk to you’, if it’s you doing the actual reading, I may. I imagine your voice in my head as I read anyways. It would make the process way easier for me.
Hope you’re feeling better 🙂

Sounds like the house in the “World According to Garp”. He knew his house was safe because what are the odds a plane would hit the same house twice? Once you have all this bad voodoo out of the way, it will be smooth sailing forever. Probably.

I’m glad to hear you are stable & more cognizant since the after-surgery fog.
I can’t say anything about the fix up house because we bought one. My husband has finally agreed that this will NOT be our last house, I couldn’t be happier. Needless to say the damn thing seems to be falling down around us. I wish you better luck with your lovely home.
I’m looking forward to making my list of stuff I can’t live without that I need in my next house.
Keep getting well cuz without your brand of humor I might just go a little more crazy. Who know it might be fun… naw hubbie says he doesn’t think so.

Appropos of nothing except you might be amused … last week we scared a groundhog out of our mulberry tree.
Does he not know he is a GROUND-hog? There he was, about 8 feet up munching on new growth. Now admittedly this tree is growing at an angle, right next to the stump of a hurricane-destroyed one, with logs rigged up for our 2ndgrader to climb on… but still. He got a lot higher than our daughter does!

Love the pic of you in the pool! On a brighter, less feelings-of-despair side, one day you’ll find “THE house” and you’ll never move again. And you’ll know this because of all the “house experience” you’re getting. Take it from one who’s been there. (Not me, but my cousin.)

First of all, I am so glad you made it through surgery. Your ability to find the humor in the shitastic is amazing, and very likely the key to survival. I’d like to say something very clever and funny here, but that isn’t my talent. Instead, I’ll say, “I hope you feel better and that things settle down soon.”

PRICELESS!! It’s amazing how with just one click of a camera, you’re able to transform something like a gaping cement hole in your backyard into pure comedy gold. Best picture ever. Thank you so much for sharing it!

Your house has obvious potential, it looks beautiful. We all have that ‘nutso neighbor’, in varying degrees. Mine haven’t wielded guns yet, but they do yell out some pretty odd comments occasionally.
Post Beyonce in your backyard. Mountain lions are scared of enormous metal chickens. Probably.
I sincerely hope that that lawn company comes back and rewards you lavishly for their screw up.
Seriously, who has the time or energy to physically stalk somebody? Sounds exhausting, and insane. They should stick to blog lurking. It’s very rewarding, cost effective, and criminal-charge-free.
Keep on keeping on, Jenny. You’re moving in the right direction.

I slipped a disc and have been ordered to 5 days bed rest besides for the pain it is cool having to be waited upon. 😉 Your pool is freaking amazing, I am sure it is going to be fab when it is completed.

Until that pool is fixed, you could use it to hold classes teaching toddlers the beginning skills of rock climbing. I KNOW there are parents out there who would sign up. I hope you are back to feeling good soon!

Why stop at possums? Maybe you’ll get bitten by the mountain lion but now because of your surgery (and the house is haunted by friendly spirits) you’ll get lion powers like running and strength and excellent night vision.

I think that should be a book cover and you should call it “The Afterlife”, meaning what your life is like AFTER writing your first book. The photo just looks haunted to me. Maybe your place is ALSO haunted. Win?

OMG! Your pool is dog bone shaped!! Its perfect for luring in the neighbors (yappie) dog, then setting a trap with it for the mountain lion! Do you know how cool you would be with a mountain lion as a pet!

I see a ton of potential for your new house though (what I could see) and I’m sorry about that whole stalker thing last year. Now that I have some of your hair I am satisfied to leave you alone.

Jasper Fforde puts stalkers in a new light in his Thursday Next books: the existence of a stalker proves how famous you are. Some stalkers are so famous they get stalkers of their own. Thurday’s (yes the main characheter is called Thursday and she has children called Tuesday and Friday) stalker is really nice but not very good at stalking.

I feel you. Our house has a lot of “personality.” That personality has been leaking from every orifice this summer causing a lot of expense and aggravation. I think that, like you, by the time it is close to feeling like home we’ll be ready to move. Sigh.

Wow! After reading your first book (and jonesing for the next one, btw), it’s official. The universe hates you more than it does me. Why? Well, I thought this plumbing problem at my Nana’s was bad, i.e.: http://tenaciousbitch.com/2011/05/16/like-a-really-bad-sit-com/ …and, yes, that was an attempt at shameless self-promotion, and… I’m okay with that :)…and I definitely felt some kind of ethereal hatred when I found out that my son’s girlfriend (now ex-girlfriend) STOLE my car while I was out of town and cheated on Max (my son) with another guy, and we don’t mean just making out either. Yeah – can you say EWWW? Even after steam-cleaning my Escalade, I had to buy a cover for the backseat because I couldn’t bear for anyone to sit there. However, getting locked in with the crazies and having to endure a waterless cement pond in the same year is the most definitive proof that the universe has no love for you since you arm-poked a cow’s vagina…:)…I hope you’re feeling better and recover quickly from your surgery! 🙂
Best,
A major fan,
TenaciousBitch
Columbus, Ohio

I love the pool picture, it’s hilarious and quite beautiful. Also, you’re giving full credence to the old Chinese curse of “may you live in interesting times”. For years my family has held the firm belief that no news is the best news…despite all the “interesting” things that still insist on happening.

My parents live in the hills up in Austin, and I shit you not, every few years a mountain lion comes through. When they built the house, there were pawprints in the yard. My mom thought it was a bobcat, but she’s never seen one (she’s from Ohio), so we had to go to that gas station in La Grange with all the taxidermy and climb up in the beer cooler to show here that bobcats have much smaller paws than the ones that left prints in the yard. A few years later, the neighbor saw it walking down along the side of the house. Every time, they call the HOA, and someone over there says, “Oh! THAT’S what must have happened to all those dogs!” Texas is special.

I thought “dog bone” too for the pool. OMG. What a ride for you! Rather than duplicate all the other comments, which I could easily do, I will just invite you to move to my neighborhood. The house across the street is vacant. I have a pool. One of those plastic jobs, maybe 8′ across, 12-18″ deep. Plenty of wildlife, hawks, deer, coyotes, and I do recall a cougar (mountian lion) sighting not too long ago.. not bad for a suburb of Chicago huh? Plus then it couldn’t be called stalking. I would be your neighbor.

Did you move to OZ??? Mountain lions, crazy neighbors with cops and dead lawns??? Victor sure knows how to pick them!!! Love the Pool, how ever a few pool floats might be in order!! This so should be the cover for your next book!
My life with Victor ad the perfect house!! I do hope you brought Beyoncé!

Oh hon…I thought my move last summer was bad. All I had/have to do is replace window treatments in every single window (thirteen) and remove all the double drapery rods the former tenants installed (and spackle and paint the big holes the hardware left), replace three toilets, two bathroom sinks & faucets, the kitchen sink and faucet, the patio screen door, the front screen door, fix the fans in the two upstairs bathrooms, fix the master bathroom shower door (which doesn’t close – which is why I’m still showering in the guest bath one year later), replace all major appliances (stove, fridge, dishwasher, washer & dryer)…the upstairs carpets need replacing, but I’d rather have the cat throw up every fifteen minutes on OLD, DIRTY carpeting instead of expensive, new carpeting. Our HOA doesn’t have it’s own mountain lion…but the neighbors across the street have the cat from HELL…does that count?? But (thank fortune) we don’t have an empty pool (actually no pool, which is just as UN-refreshing as an empty pool) and most (…okay, well PART) of my front lawn is still green.

I hope and pray that you and your whole home environment heal soon…especially the lawn…and the pool…and the psychotic neighbor…

I’m glad your surgery was a success and I’m sorry everything apparently wants to kill you. Your house looks like the most beautiful fixer-upper in the world. I’m not sure if my previous statement means that the house is full of potential or if it’s the loveliest death-trap ever. I’ll let you pick.

To Courtney, #85, who said “Nah, the sewers are full of alligators. Didn’t you get the memo? ”

That’s in New York sewers, not Texas sewers!

So, was the theme song to Jaws playing through your head while in the pool? When I was a kid, I swam extra fast the summer that Jaws came out — because, you know, a great white shark might be behind me. In the swimming pool. In Kansas. That same shark may have moved to Texas! Be careful!

Moving has been boycotted at my house by me, kids, and cats. If my husband gets the itch to move again, we will blindfold him, paint the room, spin him around, and TA DA!!! New place. When we see him with any sort of cardboard box, it is ON like a BANG A GONG!!!

Were you lying in the pool thinking, “the only way this could get any worse was if I had tubes sticking out of my gut.” ? Congratulations!! on both your successful surgery and your possible psychic abilities.

I agree with Comment #1 — that picture in the pool is DEFINITELY a book cover. (It’s not a bad title, either.)

I also agree with the comment that stated Victor is a sadist. This is true. We spent this last Saturday moving some friends who apparently own Every Box In Existence not only in July in Phoenix, but into a third-floor apartment. And while you and Victor are much younger than we are, bear in mind you’ll get here one day, and it has taken me three days, two bottles of wine, I lost track of how many painkillers, and gallons of water to recover (and I still have some sore muscles).

Of course, if he stops moving you, then we miss out on these wonderful stories…

Reading folks’ comments and I am terribly confused. Just how does that pool look like a penis? OK, admittedly, it’s been a long time, but I cannot imagine that things have changed THAT much. Or if they HAVE, I am suddenly very glad that I am single and unpopular.

We are now more 25 years into our “save an old house from destruction” project. It is over 100 years old. After all the blood, sweat, tears, sledge hammers, chainsaws, arguments and $$$ we’ve poured into it (and still not done yet) I tell people the only way they’ll get me out of it is in either a pine box or a strait jacket. Either way they’ll probably have to pry a drill out of one hand and a paint brush out of the other once rigor mortis sets in. So I totally get it.

Just sit back a moment and be grateful you don’t have bats in the attic. The house, that is. Around here they are “protected” so you can’t even exterminate them. And they make really lousy pets. They won’t roll over or shake hands or anything on command.

I’ve been fighting the very profound urge to hide under my desk all day today…for a number of reasons not worth going into here (or anywhere else, for that matter). Then I decided to take a quick look at your blog, doubting that there would be anything new since you are full of tubes and all — and there it was. You made me smile and think twice about the desk-hiding plan. In all sincerity, thank you.

And I also promise not to stalk you. I “stalked” an ex-boyfriend, years ago, in the dark ages before there was stalking and it was still called “unrequited love” or “pining” or something stupid like that. I quit after a day and a half, because it was exhausting and he turned out to be spectacularly boring. Lesson learned.

Oh, I just want to cry or maybe hyperventilate for you. I’m staring at my master bathroom walls with what looks like brown shit splattered everywhere (brown paint samples) and that’s really all I can handle right now.

Yikes lady. The worst thing I have to deal with is coming up with the $56.00 I am short that I owe you for my ad. My beautiful, perfect, gosh I wish it could be up all year….ad.

Well that and the fact that my husband is using the cat shaver to shave his balls. Right now. I mean it. I don’t think the cats will ever let me get near them with it again. There goes Farallon’s Lion Cut for Summer.

The pool picture reminds me of a movie from my country, where a family buys a romantic little house a little outside a mountain village that needs heavy renovation. Short on money they decide to do most work themselves. Whatever they do to try to remodel leads to bigger problems. As the house more or less collapses around them, they decide to demolish what’s left and build it new from scratch, including the adding of a basement. After a while of digging they discover that their house was built above an illegal mass grave from WWII. They are left with a lot of debt, no house, no building permit (as, of course the land they bought is now subject of massive investigation) and a very demolished car. Best quote from the entire movie: “There you go digging your own grave, and then it’s already taken.”

I agree with some of the others that the picture of you in the pool needs to be on the cover of your next book! It’s awesome and it’s one of those cases where a picture says a thousand words. Maybe you need to lure that stalker close to the pool and then…oops (of course not resulting in a fatal injury that would screw up your homeowners policy!).

“If you like pina coladas…and lounging over the drain…”
Congrats on your new digs. Sorry about the lawn. And the pool. And the stalkers. And the shoot out. And the possums…and…Dang girl! You deserve a massive pina colada slushy!

Your new neighborhood is going to literally write itself in a the form of another best seller and the house will pay for itself and more. It’s only been a few weeks nad LOOK at the stories and bizarre situations you’ve found yourself in in this new home in a “safer” gated community with the crazies and lions… (well done victor!)

How you find yourself in these situations is a complete accidental (I think?) serendipitous stroke of genius

Keep us posted on remodeling and mental health scale. Going crazy gets in the way of completing remodeling.
But stay hilarious and keep us updated =) Hope you are feeling better!

Hope you are healing up real fine. It seems that all of the bad things that can happen happened within a short time frame for you. Now that they are done with you should be getting all of the good things from now on. Can’t wait to see the “after” pictures of the pool.

You OWN this! You are the queen of the amazing story and if I had someone accidentally killed my grass after a shoot out at the front gates with a mountain lion on the loose, I’d have drown myself in pina-coladas already! If it were not for the stomach tubes, I suspect you would have already have the mountain lion in for taxidermy , and a wanted poster put up for the yard-whisperer that needs a second grade reading lesson. That stalker thing is too bad, but if they come back, your neighborhood sounds like it will put up a hell of a fight to them.

Keep writing, get better and I cannot wait to see your new book with that pool pic on the cover. Sheer genius!

I’m just back reading your blog after a break of a few months while I had a breakdown and sat in a corner banging my head on the wall, you know the kind of thing. Anywho what I wanted to say was OMG! I am so sorry because I have on several occasions joked about stalking you and stuff on my blog, which of course I would never have done had I realised it was actually happening to you. Sorry about that. It wasn’t me by the way…………………

Your picture? It makes me smiley. Also I think it’s super artsy. So win-win. For me. And for you, because when you make the world smile it should make you smile too. Or something like that. I’m not very good at remembering sayings correctly. Thank you for being you.

I just want to say that a) I concur with CeeJayVA – you definitely have the pic & title for your next book… in all languages, and b) If you lived anywhere near me, I would happily bring you many pina coladas.

That pool looks like it was incredible in its heyday. I also think that photo would make a great book cover!
I love looking at old busted-up houses and imagining the potential. The problem is paying for the restorations..

I feel like there has to be a way to combine the poison guy with the puppy-eating mountain lion situation. Now, while I like the idea of protecting a mountain lion…um…dude…PUPPIES. You can’t win up against a good puppy.

Somehow this reminds me when my grandma sold her house to move, and the bug killer people showed up a month early and started “tenting” the house to spray it full of poison. She was still living there and it was full of food and things that you don’t want covered in poison. It took her and her Realtor hours to convince them that they had the wrong date because they didn’t want to come back.

A friend noted to me that The Bloggess had her gallbladder out right around when I did. I had to find what you write and I found this. I love it. I wish you all the best in finding a good shooter-eating lawn to keep the crazies you’re locked in with away from your new home and hope you are recovering well!

OK, I don’t know if the Bloggess reads comments this much later, but I read this paragraph to my husband:

“We moved a few months ago, continuing our pattern of buying a house, fixing it and then putting it up for sale about 15 minutes before it actually feels like home. When Victor decided we should move again I told him that this house will be the last one because I wasn’t moving again unless it was in a coffin. Then he waited until I was out of town and bought an old (but very sweet) house that needed massive repairs, had lots of issues, and could probably kill us. In short, he bought the “me” of houses.”

And he sighed and said “I’ll shank you”.

p.s. he said that because this one time I bought a house that needed to be gutted while he was out of town. Not because he’s going to actually shank me. But that may be because I’m not planning on buying another house while he’s at work today or whatever. Though I might buy a volkswagen.